EAST PEORIA, Ill. – The No. 1-ranked and top-seeded UIndy softball team got off on the right foot Thursday at the 2024 GLVC Championship Tournament. The Greyhounds secured a 9-1 win against eighth-seeded Maryville, cruising to a run-rule win in five innings.
 
UIndy remains in the winners' bracket to face fifth-seeded Missouri-St. Louis tomorrow afternoon. First pitch is scheduled for 5 p.m. ET, 4 p.m. local. UMSL outlasted McKendree in the morning game, 6-4, in nine innings.
 
INS & OUTS
The Hounds scored early and often in support of starter Kenzee Smith, hanging crooked numbers on the board in each of the first three innings. After a two-spot in the first, UIndy piled on with three in the second and four more in the third to pull away.
 
Emily O'Connor took one to the centerfield wall for a two-run double in the second inning, while Megan Nichols also plated a pair with a two-bagger of her own an inning later.
 
Both Lexy Rees and Braxton Downs chipped in a sacrifice fly. Nichols finished a perfect 3-for-3; while Rees, Shelby Cook and Dominique Proctor all walked twice. Reserves Nicole Pearce and Abby Maguire scored a run apiece.
 
Smith, meanwhile, earned her 30th win of the season, allowing just two hits and one walk in four scoreless frames of work. Just three UIndy pitchers have reached the 30-win plateau in a season, with the two-time reigning GLVC Pitcher of the Year in now just the second-ever Hound to accomplish it more than once.